“Investigations conducted byIvass on the Italian insurance system in 2020 and 2021 show that coverage of climate risks is marginal". She said it Luigi Federico Signorini, president of the Insurance Supervisory Institute, speaking at the Insurance Summit on Monday entitled "Ensuring a prosperous future for people and the planet", organized by the National Association of Insurance Companies (Ania) with the Italian Presidency of the G20.
Signorini then specified that from 2022 IVASS will detect the coverage of climate risk by Italian companies every year, with the aim of "increasing the degree of awareness on the part of the insurance industry".
As regards the catastrophic risk, the number one of the Supervisory Authority notes that, although in Italy it is higher than in other countries, the degree of insurance coverage is low by international comparison. For this reason, according to Signorini, "a more important role for the insurance sector, in a strengthened framework of cooperation between the public and private sectors, can be useful", even if "many technical and political aspects must be carefully considered".
On the side of sustainability, the president of IVASS underlined that the ESG criteria – relating to the environment, social issues and corporate governance – are adopted by Italian companies in a very heterogeneous way, as is also the case abroad.
Finally, Signorini intervened on the proposal formulated by the European Commission to modify Solvency2 (the EU directive which extends the Basel II banking regulation to the insurance sector), expressing a positive opinion. "The proposal seems to contain some potentially useful elements to mitigate the problem of procyclicality and unjustified volatility of the requirements", said Signorini, adding however that, in the absence of some parts of the new legislation, "it is not yet possible to evaluate the overall effect of the package".
Finally, the president of IVASS made it known that the Authority "will continue to offer its contributions both at European and national level", and that it is ready "to support the Government on a series of technical aspects that deserve attention" .
